A rape culture 101, for the unsure.

'Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.' - Andrea Dworkin

Word


I am pissed off, fucked off, at having to write this. This is about rape culture. It's about the ability of powerful and less powerful men to rape with impunity, whilst worldwide everybody looks on and says, 'ah yes, but it's "he said, she said"/it has to be innocent until proven guilty' or just *stereotypical rape apologism here*'.

I am sick and tired of having rape discussions that start from the premise, 'it is terrible for a man to be falsely accused of rape'. Yes. Of course it is terrible to be falsely accused. Can we stop pretending that we currently have a fair system which simply and rightfully attempts to make sure that innocent men aren't convicted?

More to the point, it is terrible to *be raped* And, putting this out there, MANY MORE PEOPLE ARE RAPED THAN ARE FALSELY ACCUSED OF RAPING. THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS MORE. Stop catering to the Daily Mail's victim-blaming mythologies. Can you, for once, put it into perspective??

Shall we talk about the ways in which rape victims are sometimes treated in court? Shall we talk about the victim-blaming preconceptions of jury members? Can we have a discussion about misogyny and how this might affect cases, for fuck's sake? Or do we have to keep acting as if that none of this other stuff happens, that the only thing at stake is deciding upon a legal principle: innocent until proven guilty?

I have lost count of the amount of conversations I have had about rape which have not been about how thousands of people get raped and don't bring convictions, but that instead centre around the tiny minority of cases where a false allegation is brought. Conversations about rape should not start with me having to reassure your fragile ego that in general, *women don't lie about rape*. Any woman (and I'm focusing on woman because men do not face the same kinds of prejudices) who makes a false rape accusation, and who has half a brain cell, knows what she is getting into. She will be disbelieved, mocked, denigrated, shamed and shamed and shamed. People will simply not believe her. People will sympathise with her rapist, not with her. There is nothing so stigmatising as being a rape survivor; except maybe talking about it.

If in conversation you find yourself defending those who are accused of rape on reflex, ask yourself why. Is it because you are scared that one day you may be falsely accused? If the latter, maybe you need to start thinking about what consent is. Are you having sex with people you aren't sure are consenting? The absence of a 'no' is not enough for consent. You need an enthusiastic yes, and if you aren't sure, ASK. It is highly unlikely that you will simply encounter a vindictive psychopath who puts herself through the hell of a legal rape claim just to get at you. It could happen, but equally, you could get struck by lightening.

Or do you sympathise with the accused because you think that in most cases of rape, it is one person's word against another and the most important thing at stake is innocent until proven guilty? (Aside from the rant about to follow, please see Zoe Williams' point here, that as a false allegation of rape is also a crime, the only reasonable presumption is that you don't know .)

What is rape culture?

Rape culture is one in which the default position in a rape case is not just innocent until proven guilty, but I'm sure that *something happened* but it was probably consensual and she just changed her mind or she was probably drunk and regretted it or she was wearing a short skirt and asked for it or she had some reason to blackmail him or she was walking alone at night and shouldn't have been or she's a bit emotionally unstable anyway or she's a sex worker or she got into his bed or they've had sex before or she isn't credible anyway, look, one time she took drugs, or she's into group sex so how can we tell or she's a member of the BDSM community and that's what happens if you get into that kind of situation or she's a slut anyway or he seems like a nice guy, why would he do something like that, or she has lied before in her life or it wasn't that violent so it can't have been that bad. ETC ETC ETC.

Rape culture is where only 6.5% of reported rape cases lead to conviction. (Thanks, The Guardian, for reconfirming that fact here)

Rape culture is where women and men feel too afraid to go to the police when they have been raped or sexually assaulted. They know there is every likelihood that police treatment will be belittling, denigrating and unsupportive. They know that their word will immediately be put on trial. Rape crisis centres and refuges, at least, often *believe what the survivor is saying* - oh, except most of their funding has been cut.

Rape culture is where being a crime victim leads to your credibility being destroyed in any way possible. You'd better have a 100000% perfect memory of the rape, the events before and the events after - if you mix up the details at any stage of the million recountings you'll have to do, you're clearly lying. In fact, you'd better have lived a saintly life, because if you've ever done anything wrong, you're legally unrapeable.

Rape culture is where the media can spread a lie about the survivor across the world in the pursuit of destroying her credibility. See Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Rape culture is when every major news outlet tells this story: 'charges expected to be dropped', 'prosecutor says charges will be dropped, and accused may rejoin presidential race in spite of other rape allegations', 'prosecution says witness unreliable'... can you see a pattern here? I can, it's one in which powerful white men are allowed to rape powerless women of colour.

Rape culture is where sex, in general, is seen as dirty and bad and only to be done in hetero-monogamous marriage. It's where women are shamed for having sex, or for not having sex. It's where men are taught to aggressively pursue potential sexual partners; to see sex as something to be acquired from the initially resistant (dehumanised) target. It's where sex education doesn't really happen. It's where we don't know, or don't care, that yes means yes and no means no.

Rape culture is where media coverage of rape fixates on, amplifies, hypes, endlessly reports on the small percentage of women who (a law enforcement body has decided) made a false allegation.

Rape culture is where rape coverage relays every grisly detail of an attack.

Rape culture is where falsely retracting a rape allegation can land you in jail. (Supposedly Keir Starmer has now put a stop to this)

Rape culture is when women are invariably represented as devoid of subjectivity, sexually submissive, and acquiescent to forceful sexual overtures.

Rape culture is the fact that a husband could not legally rape his wife until 1991.

Rape culture is where copies of soft porn magazines are seen as appropriate reading material for juries waiting to be called into cases. Possibly rape cases. (I'm not making this up, Snaresbrook Crown Court has copies of FHM in the jury waiting area).

Rape culture is where rape is accepted as an inevitable part of male sexuality. Please see Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Rape culture is where the onus is put on women (men aren't ever seen as victims) to prevent their own rape. Ignoring the fact that preventing yourself from being raped is impossible, however you act. Ignoring the fact that not calling an illegal minicab doesn't reduce the risk of you being raped if your partner, friend or acquaintance decides to rape you.

Rape culture is where you can't withdraw consent after you've given it.

Rape culture is where fucking someone whilst they are asleep, who therefore *cannot* have given consent, is not seen as rape. Rape culture is where preventing someone from using protection is not seen as rape. Please see Julian Assange.

Rape culture is where you can't discuss rape without ending up, or beginning, in a discussion about false allegations.

This list could go on forever. Please feel free to add to it.


What can I do to oppose rape culture?

Make sure you know what rape is and then don't do it, look at these websites, challenge rape apologists. Also give all your money to Rape Crisis:

http://www.scarleteen.com/

http://www.object.org.uk/ (Caveat: I have heard a lot of criticism of OBJECT. They take an explicitly anti-porn and anti-sex work position. You may or may not agree with this, but what they say is nevertheless very much worth your time and thought.)

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/call-end-violence-women-girls/government-stern-review?view=Binary

http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/

http://www.thehavens.co.uk/advice.php

http://www.aswaterspassingby.org/sexualabuse.html


I leave you with another quotation from Andrea Dworkin, who said some good, invariably misrepresented stuff:

We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us. We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way. That’s true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.

The Awesome/Outrageous Roundup

Today's Awesome/Outrageous Roundup has a general sex-positivity theme. Coz I'm in San Francisco, and stuff. Did I mention I'm in San Francisco?*

Fagget Fairys. They epitomise awesome.


Awesome:

Carol Queen pleasantly mocking an old British study on G-Spots

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/20/is-it-cold-in-here/

Cool thing about underrated actresses: click here!

I met the author of this blog about male submission the other day at a sex discussion group (I'm that cool) at the Center for Sex and Culture, also run by Carol Queen, who is clearly a fixture of this sex-positivity theme. Here it is: click! Warning: NSFW, depending on your place of work.

Can't wait to see Meryl Streep taking on Thatcher in this. Who wants to come and see it with me?

Finally, it just popped up on my twitter that Brody Dalle has given birth.

Awesome/Outrageous:

One of the only articles I have ever read where I agreed with every word more than life itself. This is a victory for common sense, feminism, standards in academia, and not reporting slavishly when someone is clearly wrong. Have already tweeted it, but here again: click here

Lady Gaga's new video: You and I. Awesome only for the presence of Lady G in drag, then Lady G in drag making out with Lady G not in drag. Outrageous outfits, some of them. I would recommend watching it with the sound off.

Outrageous:

http://isdorriesoutyet.com/. Outrageous only because of the answer.

I can't even begin to deal with the stupidity of this: http://www.springerlink.com/content/w6t8284q7123w214/. Please pay particular attention to the last sentence of the abstract. If it makes you want to run through the streets screaming and banging your forehead with an anvil, well, me too.


*Comments like: 'Yeah you may be in San Francisco but why are you sitting in your hostel blogging and waiting for your laundry when you could be out having fun?' will not be appreciated. Or even acknowledged.

There's more to the UK riots than class vs. criminality

Protesters at Tahrir Square

When they were first released, images of women participants in the Arab Spring, particularly in Tahrir Square, were eagerly seized upon in the UK. We wanted to hold onto the idea that Middle Eastern feminisms were beginning to sow results recognizable in the language of Western democracy. We wanted to identify the uprisings with the values of the so-called liberal West - democracy, freedom of speech, and the right for women to participate.

But to participate only, and when the cameras were turned away from the Middle East, it was clear that those who had quickly heralded feminist revolution had delivered little more than overblown rhetoric. The rapes and virginity tests that shortly followed - designed to put women back in their place - were an unwelcome reminder that it takes more than a few women's faces on the streets to signify anything more than incremental progress.

Where riots are, mostly, women are. Yet when women riot, it is something that is focused on. It has been pointed out that women, as well as men, have been participating in the looting and rioting of the last few days. As I went to sleep in San Francisco last night, the most watched item on BBC news was this video: Riot Girls Brag About Violence. Women's participation in the public sphere, such as it is, is much greater in Britain than Egypt, and still it is notable, surprising even, when women take to the streets.

The empty pronouncements of our political leaders about 'criminality' are so devoid of critical engagement as to be self-parodies. But neither are these riots just about an underprivileged class reacting violently to deprivation, or even alienation. Nor is it just today's youth taking a culture of conspicuous acquisition to its logical conclusion. It is that, but that's not enough to explain it.

Aside from everything else, the UK riots are also what happens when a form of masculinity reacts when its sense of entitlement is confounded. I'm not 'blaming' masculinity. I don't think attributing blame willy-nilly is helpful here. I think, also, that it's a rightful sense of entitlement; we should all have access to jobs and housing (at the very least). It is, however, a particular cultural masculinity that allows for structureless violent disorder as a tenable response. This needs to be spoken about.

That men are allowed to react violently when threatened is a message taught and then reinforced. The cultural message that boys will be boys, that boys can't verbalise feelings, that an intimidating physical presence is sexually desirable, and so on, is everywhere to the point of nausea. Just yesterday on the bus, I listened in on the conversation of three teenagers; two boys and a girl. One boy was annoying the other boy, who quickly responded with, 'how about I smack you in the face?' The girl just laughed appreciatively.

Which is not to say that women aren't violent. Masculinity is not only (or always) found in men. But when we see women displaying the wanton violence that we associate with masculinity we find it shocking, and the exceptionalising and patronising media coverage often reflects this sense of shock. Violent women rioters are acting outside of their prescribed gender role. 'What are these girls doing on the streets rioting? Can we get a shot of some girls gone wild at the riots to symbolise the utter degeneration of our society's youth? You know, instead of tit-flashing we can have looting and destruction? Great.'

Even this, however, is better than its reinforcing counter-narrative, in which women and girls are represented as pretty, lovely peace-keepers. Remember this image from the student protests? Yawn. Tell me more about the looting yobettes.

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik's anti-feminist manifesto

I've just been having a browse through Anders Breivik's seminal work of hateful schlock, 2083: A Declaration of European Independence. Taking into account the murder of so many people, it makes for even more depressing reading than the usual internet bile. Unsurprisingly, alongside multiple expressions of racism, fascism, Islamophobia, white supremacism, etc. etc., we have good old anti-feminism. Misogyny. Anti-womanism.

A good job has already been done over at 'Manboobz' (I don't like the name but in this case I think the posts are worth linking to), extracting some of the particularly nasty anti-women sentiments. The resident blogger also points out, most pertinently, that these sentiments aren't at all out of place in the cluster of 'Men's Rights' websites and forums that fester all over the internet.

Tributes in Norway

Here, for your delectation, are a couple of beauties from the manifesto:

"Ladies should be wives and homemakers, not cops or soldiers, and men should still hold doors open for ladies. Children should not be born out of wedlock. Glorification of homosexuality should be shunned. Jurors should not accept Islam as an excuse for murder."

"Where do we see radical feminism ascendant? It is on television, where nearly every major offering has a female “power figure” and the plots and characters emphasise inferiority of the male and superiority of the female. It is in the military, where expanding opportunity for women, even in combat positions, has been accompanied by double standards and then lowered standards, as well as by a decline in enlistment of young men, while “warriors” in the services are leaving in droves. It is in government-mandated employment preferences and practices that benefit women and use “sexual harassment” charges to keep men in line. It is in colleges where women’s gender studies proliferate and “affirmative action” is applied in admissions and employment..." etc etc.

Like - I wish radical feminism was so powerful as Breivik believes? Actually, I can't be bothered to look for any more extracts. It goes on in much the same vein for 1518 pages.

Ok so the point is that this isn't just the work of one 'madman'. Breivik obviously had plenty of support from numerous others with the same ideas as him. He believed in his worldview, and he isn't the only one who does. The amount of rabid anti-feminism on the internet is shocking, and that's just the internet. I rarely meet committed anti-feminists in person (or at least, they don't tend to admit it to me) - but I know that plenty of them exist.

It is maybe the lesser of two evils that misogynists are permitted to reinforce their prejudices and disseminate their anti-woman ideology through the internet. But much, much more needs to be done before there is a widespread cultural recognition that (if you think it is helpful to speak of 'extremists' at all) anti-feminism is an extremist ideology just like racism, Islamophobia and all the rest. Its no coincidence that Breivik held all these beliefs concurrently. They're all connected.

Apologies for broken record-itis, but kids should really be taught this stuff in schools. I think that that is one of the most important steps forward for women's equality that could be made at present. It's only too obvious that where there is no education otherwise, there will be a bedrock of committed misogynists that bolster the ideas of those, like Breivik, who will go on to commit violent terror. Of course there isn't a catch-all solution to these problems, and maybe there will always be retrograde extremists who slip through the net. But it would be nice to see open sexism reduced to the same sort of level as, let's say, holocaust denial. That won't happen until we recognise the extent of the problem.

It's time for British Zionists to speak out with Arabs in Israel

A few weeks ago I was invited on an excursion to Israel organised by the wonderful people at New Deal of the Mind. It was funded by BICOM. Here's something I wrote about the trip: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ray-filar/it’s-time-for-british-zionists-to-speak-out-with-arabs-in-israel

The refugee area in East Jerusalem.